Found this in my picture files. It is not the best pic and even has bra strap marks running through it, but I really liked the theme of this one so here it is… She is a hell taker! The idea was this spider like gall went to hell and basically kicked some devil butt. Now she is sitting there showing the skull of old Beelzebub with a background featuring the flames of hell itself and demons kinda showing (my brain says dancing) in the flames. This is obviously an aged tattoo (at time of photo) and I really wish I had been able to get a better pic. I always prefer aged over freshly healed and healed over fresh done when it comes to tattoos.
The client had really thought this one out and had a ton of references. I basically put them all together kinda like a paste up / collage, but by drawing all the bits together. No guesswork was needed… Boots, body, lips, garter belt, jewelry, demons, flames, pillars, zipper, skull, the whole works all came on separate printouts. Overall I like the outcome and totally dig the theme.

Some colorful stylized gladiolus which the client requested because both she and her daughter were born in August. Gladiolus are the birth flower (one of) for the month of August.
I went with a soft, barely visible outside the leaves sketch line here because I wished the colors to form the floral shapes rather than the lines. The color selection didn’t lend itself to a zero line tattoo because over time the softening would have made the image blur.
I used what I considered ‘just enough’ soft line to hold it all together over the years to come.
If you are wondering about the background on this one…
The tattoo is on a close friend and the picture was taken at a local market (Country Aire in Port Angeles) which is less than a block from my place of work. I saw the tattoo and thought “photo opportunity” and clicked off a couple shots with my phone. Not sure how entertained she was with me taking pictures of her back while shopping, but I prefer healed tattoo pictures and hadn’t gotten one yet. The tattoo was about three months old at the time of the photo.
If you notice the tattoo on her far right side you can guess she likes floral tattoos. I did that one also, but it was maybe four or five years ago.

So when I was asked to do a skeleton in medieval type stocks with a newer, yet antiqued lock and a skeleton key I figured it was probably a pretty common theme even though it hadn’t been requested before. I googled it and it seems it isn’t. Weird.
For some reason it just seemed it should be.
Anyways… the key hangs around the neck because that way it tantalizes yet is out of reach. That is what the client was going for here.

If you are unfamiliar with stocks… This is from Wikipedia:
Stocks are devices used internationally, in medieval, Renaissance and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by.

I hit this picture with a remove color filter option and since it was black work only and I figured it looked cool that way I left that way.

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Aarron Laidig of AARRON.COM is an artist from the Pacific Northwest. He currently tattoos by appointment only in Port Angeles , WA under the studio name Red Region which is an homage to a poem by George William (“A. E.”) Russell. The physical studio is located at 117 N Oak St. Port Angeles, Wa. You may contact Aarron via his Instagram or via Facebook.